Oaxaca, 2025

Photography

Nov 7

The ceiling in Reagan National Airport is the most perfect web.

It’s a great metaphor for our lives in Washington, DC.

You build networks. Your order your affairs. You order your meals. But our webs aren’t engineered with steel, glass and aluminum. In DC, they fray from profoundly un-American attacks. The firings, the occupation, the shutdown.

There is personal loss and uncertainty to reckon with as well. We are stressed and eager to escape the madness. Our trip to Oaxaca is well timed, and the red-eye flight gives us plenty of time to sleep on the plane. Only a few hours left after a layover in Dallas.

I turn off my mind.

We arrive in Oaxaca...

It’s a long flight and we need rest. We unload our mental and physical baggage to embrace the unknown.

Power Transmission, Oaxaca — My body feels electric.

Excitement pulses through my body with nowhere to go. There is so much to see. I need to roam.

Dogs, Oaxaca. 2025 — I am a dog.

Eager to explore my surroundings, I venture outward.
I am guided by my senses. I am cautious. I am friendly. I am hungry.
I walk the streets. I meet people in markets and follow the taxis. They always know where to go.

Interlude 1.

Oaxaca is constantly in motion.

I shot freehand, mostly in long exposure to pick it up. Some images have motion blur because you just can’t plop down tripods in Centro. People are constantly buzzing around you. Long exposure often anonymizes people in the frame, and sometimes that’s better for the moment.

I captured a lot of taxis. There are tons — but mostly because the cabbies are good, patient people. My español is not amazing, but they still chatted. This trip would have been rough without them.

Shout out, Oaxacan cabbies.

I am exhausted.

I’ve wandered four hours across Centro. Colorful spirits glide over the road, swirling into the beyond. I feel at peace. I let go.

Zócalo Trees, Oaxaca. 2025 — I lay down and feel grounded.

My energy subsides. I ease into my inevitable reunion with the Earth.
There is no fear.

Interlude 2.

Oaxaca is a cultural powerhouse.

You see collisions of modernity and history everywhere. Clothes featuring Mixtec colors and stories woven into Western fashions. Absurdly delicious food winning Michelin stars with cacti, diverse molés, and grasshoppers. Facades of Spanish colonial architecture housing items of unabashedly local, indigenous origin.

As a designer, photographer, and artist, I can’t help but be impressed. Oaxaca is visibly brimming with talent on all fronts.

It’s obvious the country, state, and city supports and promotes its significant cultural exports. Centro has many design, art, and architecture colleges and academies. Seeing artisans, artists, and designers with thriving shops, galleries, and communities is inspiring.

We explored for 10 days, but could spend 10 weeks unpacking just one aspect of Oaxacan culture. There’s a mystery around every corner.

For three days, we die.

In death, we can trade blessings with our ancestors, celebrate our mortality, and inspire each other toward fuller lives.

We get up late.

Our spirits are refreshed, our legs are not. We are ready for life’s possibilities.

Interlude 3.

Ya gotta talk to locals when you travel.

Oaxaca has a good relationship with the tourism it attracts. I never met a rude or impatient person. Everyone was accommodating, and at least a little curious about the gringo with “la cámara gigante.” Good food or shops are always “abajo de la cuadra y a la izquierda.” They know why people come and are eager for you to visit their favorite local spot.

Oaxacans have every reason to be proud of their state. There is a strong sense of community. Most locals I met were born there and never left, and they’re definitely aware of what’s happening elsewhere. Some expressed sympathy for my inevitable return home, knowing America’s political situation is bad, to put it lightly.

“¡Tu presidente esta loco!”

Indeed.